NetBox

Plugin: netflow-plugin Module: netbox

Overview

Annotate network flows with tenant, site, role, VRF, and description metadata from NetBox. NetBox is the most widely deployed open-source IPAM / DCIM. It is Apache-2.0 licensed and maintained by the netbox-community organization (commercial variants – NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise – are offered by NetBox Labs on top of the same upstream code). Operators already curate prefix metadata in NetBox and want flow records to inherit those labels automatically rather than maintaining a parallel list in netflow.yaml.

This integration polls NetBox’s Prefixes REST API at a configurable interval, transforms the response with jq, and labels matching flow prefixes with whatever fields you map. NetBox is the authoritative source – when the same prefix is tagged in NetBox and in the static networks: block, the static block wins (operator override is intentional, see the Network Identity concept page).

Use cases: applying your organisation’s data-centre rack labels, tenant names, environment tags (prod / staging / dev), and VRF / site identifiers to flows so dashboards and queries surface “this is the staging tier in fra1” instead of a raw CIDR.

Periodic HTTPS GET to /api/ipam/prefixes/ on your NetBox host. Authentication is a NetBox API token in the Authorization header. NetBox supports two token formats:

• Legacy v1 tokens (Authorization: Token <token>) – accepted by all NetBox versions, simplest to wire up.
• v2 tokens (NetBox 4.x, Authorization: Bearer nbt_<key>.<token>) – the prefix nbt_ and the random key are concatenated with the token via a dot.

The plugin transports either format – the value is whatever NetBox issued for the service account.

The plugin runs the configured transform (jaq – a jq-equivalent) over the parsed JSON body and produces per-prefix objects. NetBox’s response is paginated; the plugin does not follow next links. Pass ?limit=0 (NetBox 4.x default MAX_PAGE_SIZE is 1000; setting 0 removes the cap when the server config allows) or an explicit ?limit=N greater than your prefix count, or expose a server-side aggregator that returns the full list at one URL.

This integration is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This integration supports multiple instances configured side-by-side.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

Disabled by default. Add an entry under enrichment.network_sources with your NetBox URL and API token.

Limits

Resource use scales with the number of NetBox prefixes returned by the URL and transform. Use NetBox filtering when you only need a subset of VRFs, sites, tenants, or roles.

Performance Impact

One HTTP request per refresh interval plus a jq transform over the response. Runtime enrichment does prefix matching for source and destination IPs, and cost scales with the number of loaded network-source records.

Setup

Prerequisites

NetBox API token with read scope on Prefixes

In NetBox, create or reuse a service-account user, then generate an API token under “Admin > Users > Tokens”. Restrict the token to read-only and (for v4.x) limit the scope to ipam.view_prefix. The token value goes in the Authorization header.

The plugin only reads – never writes – so a read-only token is sufficient and recommended. Token format depends on the NetBox version:

• NetBox 3.x or earlier: Token <40-char-hex> (legacy).
• NetBox 4.x: either legacy Token <hex> or new Bearer nbt_<key>.<token> (v2 tokens, opt-in).

Bulk endpoint (?limit=0 or aggregator)

The plugin fetches a single page. NetBox’s default PAGINATE_COUNT is 50 and MAX_PAGE_SIZE is 1000. For inventories above 1000 prefixes, either raise MAX_PAGE_SIZE server-side and pass ?limit=0, or expose an internal aggregator endpoint that walks pagination and returns the full list at one URL.

NetBox version-aware field mapping

NetBox 4.2 replaced the per-prefix site foreign key with a generic scope field (a prefix can now be scoped to a region, site group, site, or location – not just a site). API responses on 4.2+ omit site and expose scope (read-only) plus scope_type / scope_id. Adjust your jq accordingly – on 4.2+ use (.scope.name // ""), on 4.1 and earlier use (.site.name // "").

Configuration

Options

Add a named entry under enrichment.network_sources pointing at your NetBox. The network source configuration accepts url, method, headers, proxy, tls, timeout, interval, and transform. Authentication is configured via the generic headers: map – there is no NetBox-specific auth helper.

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is netflow.yaml.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config netflow.yaml

Examples

NetBox 4.x with v2 token, scope-aware mapping

Standard NetBox 4.2+ wiring. Maps tenant, role, the new scope field (covers site / region / site-group / location), and the human-readable description. ?limit=0 returns all prefixes in one call when MAX_PAGE_SIZE is unset on the NetBox server.

enrichment:
  network_sources:
    netbox:
      url: "https://netbox.example.internal/api/ipam/prefixes/?limit=0"
      headers:
        Authorization: "Bearer nbt_AbCdEf0123456789.GhIjKl0123456789"
      interval: 5m
      timeout: 30s
      transform: |
        .results[] | {
          prefix: .prefix,
          tenant: (.tenant.name // ""),
          role:   (.role.name // ""),
          site:   (.scope.name // ""),
          name:   (.description // "")
        }        

NetBox 3.x / 4.0 / 4.1 with legacy site field

Pre-4.2 NetBox still exposes site directly on the Prefix object. Use a legacy Token header and read .site.name instead of .scope.name.

enrichment:
  network_sources:
    netbox:
      url: "https://netbox.example.internal/api/ipam/prefixes/?limit=10000"
      headers:
        Authorization: "Token abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01"
      interval: 15m
      transform: |
        .results[] | {
          prefix: .prefix,
          tenant: (.tenant.name // ""),
          role:   (.role.name // ""),
          site:   (.site.name // ""),
          name:   (.description // "")
        }        

NetBox behind internal PKI (mTLS)

When NetBox is fronted by internal PKI. tls.verify: false is rejected at config-load – supply your CA explicitly and (optionally) a client certificate.

enrichment:
  network_sources:
    netbox:
      url: "https://netbox.example.internal/api/ipam/prefixes/?limit=0"
      headers:
        Authorization: "Token abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01"
      interval: 5m
      tls:
        enable: true
        ca_file: /etc/netdata/ssl/internal-ca.pem
        cert_file: /etc/netdata/ssl/netdata.crt
        key_file: /etc/netdata/ssl/netdata.key
      transform: |
        .results[] | {
          prefix: .prefix,
          tenant: (.tenant.name // ""),
          role:   (.role.name // ""),
          site:   (.scope.name // ""),
          name:   (.description // "")
        }        

VRF-aware mapping (multi-tenant networks)

When the same RFC1918 prefix appears in multiple VRFs, fold the VRF name into the friendly name so dashboards disambiguate. Note: the plugin keys on prefix only – if two rows share a CIDR, the last one wins. Filter the NetBox query (?vrf_id=N) to scope the export.

enrichment:
  network_sources:
    netbox-prod-vrf:
      url: "https://netbox.example.internal/api/ipam/prefixes/?limit=0&vrf_id=12"
      headers:
        Authorization: "Token abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef01"
      interval: 5m
      transform: |
        .results[] | {
          prefix: .prefix,
          tenant: (.tenant.name // ""),
          role:   (.role.name // ""),
          site:   (.scope.name // ""),
          name:   ((.vrf.name // "default") + ": " + (.description // ""))
        }        

Metrics

Tags flow records with the labels you mapped from NetBox – typically *_NET_TENANT, *_NET_SITE, *_NET_ROLE, *_NET_NAME. Verify on the Network Flows tab.

Alerts

There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.

Only first 50 prefixes loaded

NetBox’s default PAGINATE_COUNT is 50 and the plugin does not follow next links. Pass ?limit=0 (NetBox 4.x removes the cap when MAX_PAGE_SIZE is 0 server-side) or ?limit=N larger than your inventory. For inventories above the server’s MAX_PAGE_SIZE (default 1000), expose a server-side aggregator endpoint.

401 / 403 from NetBox

Token missing, expired, or wrong format. Verify with: curl -H "Authorization: Token <tok>" https://netbox/api/ipam/prefixes/. On NetBox 4.x check whether the token is v1 (Token <hex>) or v2 (Bearer nbt_<key>.<token>) and use the matching header. Watch the journal for network-sources warnings – HTTP errors are logged there as refresh-failed warnings.

site is empty after upgrade to NetBox 4.2

NetBox 4.2 removed site from the Prefix model and replaced it with scope (a generic foreign key that can reference region / site group / site / location). Update the jq from (.site.name // "") to (.scope.name // ""). Alternatively, key on (.scope.name // .site.name // "") so the same config works across the upgrade boundary.

VRF collisions (same CIDR in multiple VRFs)

The plugin’s network-attributes trie keys on prefix only – there is no VRF dimension on the flow side. If NetBox lists 10.0.0.0/24 in three VRFs, only the last row wins. Filter the export with ?vrf_id=N per data-plane and run one named source per VRF, or fold the VRF name into the friendly name so dashboards disambiguate.

Empty result triggers backoff

An empty results array (legitimate state for a freshly-installed NetBox) is treated as a fetch failure by the cross-cutting source loop and triggers exponential backoff. Add at least one synthetic prefix (e.g. a RFC1918 container) so the response is never empty.